Scottish Socialist Party MSP Colin Fox said the estimated £45 million that would be lost through introducing free prescriptions would be offset by up to £20m of savings, mostly as a result of fewer people needing hospital treatment.
The Lothians list MSP was today formally unveiling his Bill to abolish prescription charges, following the example of the Welsh Assembly, which voted to scrap the charges last year.
Mr Fox said: "Prescription charges are a lie to the promise the health service gave in the 1940s that it would provide universal healthcare free at the point of need.
"It’s not free and 75,000 people in Scotland have gone without the medicines they needed because they did not have the £6.40 per item for the prescription."
Mr Fox branded the current charges a tax on the sick. But he said an analysis of the financial impact of abolishing the charges, carried out by parliament officials, had shown large savings could be made through lifting the cash barrier to people getting medicine.
Scrap Prescription Charges website
